July 6. 1850.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



85 



comes a fleshy substance, and, by its figure, may easily 

 be discern'd to be the heart; which as yet hath no 

 other inclosure but the substance of the egg. But by 

 little and little, the rest of the body of an animal is 

 framed out of those red veins which streiim out all 

 about from the heart. And in process of time, that 

 body encloses the heart wiihin it by the chest, which 

 grows over on both siiies, and in tlie end meets and 

 closes itself fast together. After which this little crea- 

 ture soon fills the shell, by converting into several parts 

 of itself all the substance of the egg; and then growing 

 weary of so strait a habitation, it breaks prison and 

 comes out a perfectly formed chicken." — Sir Kenelm 

 Digby's Treatise of Bodies, Ch. xxiv. p. 274. ed. 1669. 



Could Sir Kenelin return to the scenes of tlii.s 

 u])per world, and pay a visit to Mr. Cantflo's ma- 

 chine, his shade niijrht say with truthfulness, what 

 Horace Smith's mummy answered to his ques- 

 tioner, — 



" We men of yore 



Were versed in all the knowledge you can mention." 



The operations of the two machines appear to 

 be precisely the same : the only difference being 

 that Sir Kenelni's was an experimental one, made 

 for the purpose of investigating the process of 

 nature; while Cantelo's, in accordance with "the 

 spirit of the iron time," is a jiractical one, made 

 for the purposes of utility and profit. Sir Ke- 

 nelm's Treatise appears to have been first published 

 in the year 1644. Henky Kebslbt 



Corpus Christi Hall, Maidstone. 



ETYMOLOGT OF THE WORD " PARLIAMENT." 



It has been observed by a learned annotator on 

 the Commentaries of Blachstone, that, " no incon- 

 siderable pains have been bestowed in analysing 

 the word ' Pailiament ;'" and after adducing several 

 amusing instances of the attempts that have been 

 nia<le (and those too by men of the most recon- 

 dite learning) to arrive at its true radical proper- 

 ties, he concludes his remarks by observing that 



"' Parliament' imported originally nothing more 

 than a council or conference, and that the termination 

 'ment,' in parliament, has no more signification than it 

 has in impeachment, enyagemtnt, imprisonment, heredita- 

 ment, and ten thousand others of the same nature." 



He admits, however, that the civilians have, in 

 deriving testament from testuri mentcin, imparted 

 a greater signiticance to the termination " ment." 

 Amidst such diversity of opinion, I am emboldened 

 to offer a solution of the word "Parliament," 

 which, from its novelty alone, if jKJssessiiig no bet- 

 ter (jualification, may |)erliaps reconnnend itself to 

 tlie c<jnsideratiiin of ymir readers. In my hundilo 

 judgment, all fonni;r etymohjuists of the word aii- 

 pear lo have slnndjlcd in liviina, for I would sug- 

 gest that its compounds arc ^'■puluin" and ''mens." 



With the Romans there existed a law that in 

 certain cases the verdict of the jury might be 

 given CLAM vel palam, viz., privily or openly, or in 

 other words, by tablet or ballot, or by voices. Now 

 as the essence of a Parliament or council of the 

 people was its representative character, and as 

 secrecy would be inconsistent with such a charac- 

 ter, it was doubtless a sine qnd nan that its pro- 

 ceedings should be conducted "■ palam," in an 

 open manner. The absence of the letter " r" may 

 possibly be objected to, but a moment's reflection 

 will cast it into the shade, the classical pronuncia- 

 tion of the word palam being the same as if spelt 

 v.Knlam; and the illiterate state of this country 

 when the word Parliament was first introduced 

 would easily account for a phonetic style of ortho- 

 graphy. The words enumerated by Blackstone's 

 annotator are purely of English composition, and 

 have no correspondent in the dead languages ; 

 whilst testament, sacrament, parliament, and many 

 others, are Latin words Anglicised by dropping 

 the termination " um" — a great distinction as re- 

 gards the relative value of words, which the learned 

 annotator seems to have overlooked. '■'■ Mentum" 

 is doubtless the offspring of "'mens," signifying the 

 mind, thought, deliberation, opinion ; and as we 

 find '■'■palam populo" to mean " in the sight of the 

 people," so, without any great stretch of imagina- 

 tion, may we interpret "palam mente" into "free- 

 dom of thought or of deliberation" or "an open ex- 

 pression of opinion :" the essential qualities of a 

 representative system, and which our ancestors 

 have been careful to hand down to posterity in a 

 woid, viz., Parliament. Fbanciscus. 



" INCIDIS IN SCYLLAM, CUPIENS VITARE 

 CHARYBniM." 



I should be sorry to see tliis fine old proverb in 

 metaphor passed over with no better notice than 

 that which seems to have been assigned to it in 

 Boswell's Johnson. 



Erasmophilos, a correspondent of the Gentleman's 

 Magazine in 1774, quotes a ])assage from Dr. 

 Jortin's Life of Erasmus, vol. ii. p. 151., which 

 supplies the following jjarticulars, viz.: — 



1. That the line was first discovered by Galeot- 

 tus Martius of Narni, a. d. 1476. 



2. That it is in lib. v. 301. of the " Alexandreis," 

 a poem in ten books, by Philippe Gualtier (com- 

 moidy called "de Chatilhm," though in reality a 

 native of Lille, in Flanders). 



3. That the context of the passage in wliich it 

 occurs is as follows : — 



" Quo tendis inertem 



Ilex pcriturc, fugam? Nescis, hcu perdite, nescis 

 Qnein fugias ; hostes incnrris dum tugis hostem. 

 Incidis in Scyllam, cupiens vitare Charybdim." 



where the poet apostrojjhises Darius, who, while 



